5. Miscellaneous

5.1. nm command

The nm(1) command can report the list of
symbols in a given library.
It works on both static and shared libraries.
For a given library nm(1) can list the symbol names defined, each
symbol's value, and the symbol's type.
It can also identify where the symbol was defined in the source code
(by filename and line number), if that information is available in
the library (see the -l option).

The symbol type requires a little more explanation.
The type is displayed as a letter; lowercase means that the symbol is
local, while uppercase means that the symbol is global (external).
Typical symbol types include
T (a normal definition in the code section),
D (initialized data section),
B (uninitialized data section),
U (undefined; the symbol is used by the library
but not defined by the library), and
W (weak; if another library also defines this symbol, that definition
overrides this one).

If you know the name of a function, but
you truly can't remember what library it was defined in, you can use
nm's ``-o'' option (which prefixes the filename in each line) along
with grep to find the library name. From a Bourne shell, you
can search all the libraries in /lib, /usr/lib, direct subdirectories of
/usr/lib, and /usr/local/lib for ``cos'' as follows:

Much more information about nm can be found in the nm ``info''
documentation locally installed at
info:binutils#nm.

5.2. Library constructor and destructor functions

Libraries should export initialization and cleanup routines using the
gcc __attribute__((constructor)) and __attribute__((destructor)) function
attributes. See the gcc info pages for information on these.
Constructor routines are executed before dlopen returns
(or before main() is started if the library is loaded at load time).
Destructor routines are executed before dlclose returns
(or after exit() or completion of main() if the library is loaded at load time).
The C prototypes for these functions are:

Shared libraries must not be compiled with the gcc arguments
``-nostartfiles'' or ``-nostdlib''.
If those arguments are used, the
constructor/destructor routines will not be executed
(unless special measures are taken).

5.2.1. Special functions _init and _fini (OBSOLETE/DANGEROUS)

Historically there have been two special functions, _init and _fini
that can be used to control constructors and destructors.
However, they are obsolete, and their use can lead to unpredicatable results.
Your libraries should not use these;
use the function attributes constructor and destructor above instead.

If you must work with old systems or code that used _init or _fini, here's
how they worked.
Two special functions were defined for initializing and finalizing a module:
_init and _fini.
If a function ``_init'' is exported in a library,
then it is called when the library is first opened
(via dlopen() or simply as a shared library).
In a C program, this just means that you defined some function
named _init.
There is a corresponding function called _fini, which is called whenever a
client finishes using the library
(via a call dlclose() that brings its reference count to zero, or
on normal exit of the program).
The C prototypes for these functions are:

void _init(void);
void _fini(void);

In this case,
when compiling the file into a ``.o'' file in gcc, be sure to add the
gcc option ``-nostartfiles''.
This keeps the C compiler from
linking the system startup libraries against the .so file.
Otherwise, you'll get a ``multiple-definition'' error.
Note that this is completely different than compiling modules using
the recommended function attributes.
My thanks to Jim Mischel and Tim Gentry for their suggestion to add
this discussion of _init and _fini,
as well as help in creating it.

5.3. Shared Libraries Can Be Scripts

It's worth noting that the GNU loader
permits shared libraries to be text files using a
specialized scripting language instead of the usual library format.
This is useful for indirectly combining other libraries.
For example, here's the listing of
/usr/lib/libc.so
on one of my systems:

/* GNU ld script
Use the shared library, but some functions are only in
the static library, so try that secondarily. */
GROUP ( /lib/libc.so.6 /usr/lib/libc_nonshared.a )

For more information about this, see the texinfo documentation on ld
linker scripts (ld command language).
General information is at
info:ld#Options and info:ld#Commands,
with likely commands discussed in
info:ld#Option Commands.

5.4. Symbol Versioning and Version Scripts

Typically references to external functions are bound on an as-needed basis,
and are not all bound when the application starts up.
If a shared library is out of date, a required interface may
be missing; when the application tries to use that interface,
it may suddenly and unexpectedly fail.

A solution to this problem are symbol versioning coupled with
version scripts.
With symbol versioning,
the user can get a warning when they start their program if
the libraries being used with the application are too old.
You can learn more about this from ld manual's descussion of
version scripts at
http://www.gnu.org/manual/ld-2.9.1/html_node/ld_25.html.

5.5. GNU libtool

If you're building an application that should port to many systems,
you might consider using
GNU libtool
to build and install libraries.
GNU libtool is a generic library support script.
Libtool hides the complexity of using shared libraries
behind a consistent, portable interface.
Libtool provides portable interfaces to
create object files, link libraries (static and shared), link executables,
debug executables, install libraries, install executables.
It also includes libltdl, a portability wrapper for
dynamically loading programs.
For more information, see its documentation at
http://www.gnu.org/software/libtool/manual.html

5.6. Removing symbols for space

All the symbols included in generated files are useful for debugging,
but take up space.
If you need space, you can eliminate some of it.

The best approach is to first generate the object files normally,
and do all your debugging and testing first
(debugging and testing is much easier with them).
Afterwards, once you've tested the program thoroughly, use
strip(1) to remove the symbols.
The strip(1) command gives you a good deal of control over
what symbols to eliminate; see its documentation for details.

Another approach is to use the GNU ld options ``-S'' and ``-s'';
``-S'' omits debugger symbol information (but not all symbols)
from the output file, while
``-s'' omits all symbol information from the output file.
You can invoke these options through gcc as ``-Wl,-S'' and ``-Wl,-s''.
If you always strip the symbols and these options are sufficient, feel
free, but this is a less flexible approach.

5.8. C++ vs. C

It's worth noting that if you're writing a C++ program, and you're
calling a C library function, in your C++ code you'll need to define
the C function as extern "C".
Otherwise, the linker won't be able to locate the C function.
Internally, C++ compilers ``mangle'' the names of C++ functions
(e.g., for typing purposes), and they need to be told that a given
function should be called as a C function (and thus, not have its
name mangled).

If you're writing a program library that could be called from C or C++,
it's recommended that you include 'extern "C"' commands right in your
header files so that you do this automatically for your users.
When combined with the usual #ifndef at the top of a file to skip
re-executing header files, this means that a typical header file usable
by either C or C++ for some header file foobar.h would look like this:

5.9. Speeding up C++ initialization

The KDE developers have noticed that large GUI C++ applications can take
a long time to start up, in part due to its needing to do many relocations.
There are several solutions to this.
See
Making C++
ready for the desktop (by Waldo Bastian)
for more information.

5.10. Linux Standard Base (LSB)

The goal of the Linux Standard Base (LSB) project
is to develop and promote a set of standards that will
increase compatibility among Linux distributions and
enable software applications to run on any compliant Linux system.
The project's home page is at
http://www.linuxbase.org.

A nice article that summarizes how to develop LSB-compliant applications
was published in October 2002,
Developing LSB-certified applications:
Five steps to binary-compatible Linux applications
by George Kraft IV
(Senior software engineer, IBM's Linux Technology Center).
Of course, you need to write code that only accesses the standardized
portability layer if you want your code to be portable.
In addition, the LSB provides some tools so that application writers of C/C++
programs can check for LSB compliance; these tools use some capabilities
of the linker and special libraries to do these checks.
Obviously, you'll need to install the tools to do these checks;
you can get them from the LSB website.
Then, simply use the "lsbcc" compiler as your C/C++ compiler
(lsbcc internally creates a linking environment that will complain if
certain LSB rules aren't followed):

You can then use the lsbappchk program to ensure that
the program only uses functions standardized by the LSB:

$ lsbappchk myapplication

You also need to follow the LSB packaging guidelines
(e.g., use RPM v3, use LSB-conforming package names, and
for add-on software must install in /opt by default).
See the article and LSB website for more information.